10 Video Games That Killed Companies

4. Too Human - Silicon Knights

Canadian developer Silicon Knights may not have a plethora of games to their name, but they’ve developed some of the most iconic games of the retro era such as Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. In 2008 they partnered with Microsoft Game Studios in order to create their most ambitious game to date: Too Human.

Silicon Knights had kept Too Human in development hell for years. It started off as a planned ps1 game, then a GameCube game, but contractual constraints meant they had to work on other projects before they could finish it. Finally, Silicon Knights moved to Microsoft Studios who gave them the time and money needed to complete the project.

However, one single mistake completely ruined Silicon Knight’s reputation. Silicon Knights sued Epic Games in 2007 because of the Unreal Engine 3 and Epic’s support of the product whilst they developed Too Human, but Epic counter-sued as it turned out that the game was built using a stolen copy of the engine. Silicon Knights lost the lawsuit and unsold copies of the game were recalled and destroyed as a result, and they never recovered from the loss.